Announcements

To the 4th High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF-4)
Busan, November/December 2011
 

United Nations Special Rapporteur Maina Kiai joins over 500 civil society representatives from around the world today - three days before the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness - in a call for better development policies that will put a stop to the global crackdown on people’s organizations’ (civil society organizations) freedom to do their development work.

Along with women’s organizations worldwide, Nobel Women’s Initiative is again taking part in the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence. For 16 days, Nobel Women's Initiative will spotlight stories about women activists from around the globe -- from November 25th to December 10th.

This year, in honour of the new International Campaign to Stop Rape & Gender Violence in Conflict campaign, we feature activists who are working tirelessly to end rape and gender violence around the world. 

76 secularists and human rights campaigners, including Mina Ahadi, Nawal El Sadaawi, Marieme Helie Lucas, Hameeda Hussein, Ayesha Imam, Maryam Jamil, Maryam Namazie, Taslima Nasrin, Farida Shaheed, Fatou Sow, and Stasa Zajovic have signed on to a Manifesto for a Free and Secular Middle East and North Africa.

This November 11^th marks the 3^rd year of the One Day One Struggle (ODOS) campaign.

WLUML is deeply concerned that the first public act of the Libya's National Transition Committee has been to proclaim on October 23rd, 2011, that henceforth, a number of laws will be considered annulled and that 'sharia law' is to replace them. Libya’s National Transition Committee is an interim government – what it has responsibility for – and what its first action should have concerned, is to put into place a mechanism for elections for the new government after the fall of the Gaddafi regime.

"We, the undersigned human rights, women’s rights and health organizations, welcome the report (A/66/254) of the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Anand Grover, to the UN General Assembly presented on 24 October 2011 as a milestone in the struggle for the full realization of the right to health for all.

"The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (the Observatory) releases today its 14th Annual Report on the situation of human rights defenders during a press conference held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. While the revolutions that took place in the Arab world in 2011 reminded the international community of the emergency to put the issue of human rights back at the top of its political agenda, utmost attention must be paid to the alerts made by human rights defenders worldwide, and no compromise must be made towards the harassment they face.

We, the Women’s Major Group representatives* at the Asia Pacific Regional Preparatory Meeting for Rio+20 call on governments to reaffirm their commitments to Agenda 21 and the Beijing Platform for Action, and fulfill their obligations to the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. 

The Human Rights Council adopted a resolution on Wednesday Sept 28, 2011 that reaffirms the international community’s commitment to mainstreaming human rights into efforts to prevent maternal mortality and morbidity.